Hurricane
by Princess-Xion
Summary: I am not a hero. This is not a love story. My best friend is hurting herself. No matter how hard I've tried, I don't think I can help her. They say you have to get to rock bottom before you can heal. So that's where I'm going to have to follow her. In the eye of the storm, I'll be able to save her. Sokai. /KH universe/ self harm, eating disorders, explicit content.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N 12/22/2015: This is the edited version of this chapter! I added some things, changed some sentences and words, and took out the lemon so I could turn this into a multi-chapter fic. You'll also notice that half of it is missing. That is because I cut the one shot in half and put the second half as chapter 2 with a bit of added content. Chapter 3 will be out soon! I also changed Melanie and Lilac to Elsa and the newest Disney princess Moana! I lived in Hawaii for the past two years and I miss it so I decided to rep my pseudo home state! Okay, anyway . . . Enjoy!**

 **WARNINGS: self-harm, eating disorders, foul language, explicit content. This story may get wild, as I am prone to do to all of my fics, but you have been forewarned.**

 **x-x**

 **Eye of the Storm**

 _Helpless_.

That was the best way to describe how I felt these days. Where once I had been a fearless hero of the multiverse, one girl had reduced me to just ashes of my former glory. There had been a time where I smiled and laughed, fought and rebelled; my only goal was often to protect and serve. But after the storm? After the storm, my life consisted of worry, sadness, and sleepless nights. I didn't fight the Heartless anymore. I couldn't.

The demons I now fought were much darker than Heartless, and they weren't even my own. After all, it is within the storm's eye that one's pain is laid most bare.

I noticed that there was something amiss when Riku and I returned home from our Mark of Mastery exams. Kairi had seemed chipper at the sorcerer Yen Sid's castle, ready to face our next challenge as always. An ever-vigilant anchor for me to grasp onto when I floundered, Kairi had always possessed the strongest heart out of the three of us. Never once had she lost faith in me, even when we had both forgotten each other. She had always remained steadfast and loyal. Well, it was in the midst of my obliviousness that things began to change. Or rather, they had changed a long time ago, and now I was finally noticing it. Her smile was no longer bright, and eventually its light flickered and faded. Her cerulean eyes, once vibrant and full of fire and life, had dulled and become hard as flint. Her stance drooped, her hair went limp, her quality of life overall diminished.

Long story short, something was wrong with my best friend.

It was a normal day at school. The crimson-haired girl had certainly grown, not only in maturity but in grace and looks, and it was hard to keep my eyes off her in passing. I can't tell you how many times I caught myself looking up from bookwork in English to watch her. Or when I purposefully fabricated a reason to ask her for help in Trigonometry. It wasn't hard to fool her into assisting me with my homework during Lunch and free periods either. After all, Riku and I both had been extremely behind when we were finally given the chance to return to school for as long as we could before we were called back out into the line of duty. I mean, honestly, it was a wonder we had been able to catch up as quickly as we had, to be able to join the rest of our class as Seniors.

In any case, Kairi was as innocently helpful as ever, and always happily assisted me with whatever I asked her to.

Anyway, like I said . . . It was a normal day at school. A Friday in November, to be exact. Kairi and I were sitting in one of our few shared classes: Current Events. The teacher had assigned everyone to read an article and write a short paragraph on our thoughts about the new mall they were planning upon building on the Play Island. Apparently, there were mixed feelings about it on the other Islands due to the fact that many people saw the Play Island as a landmark of sorts. Personally, I didn't care _what_ they did, seeing as I probably wouldn't be here long enough to see the mall built (The life of a Keyblade Master is not so carefree, you see), so I saw this twenty minutes of classwork time as an opportunity to pass notes to Kairi.

 _ **Most boring article ever.**_

I cast a furtive glance toward the teacher's desk, where he was diligently grading our last homework assignments, and leaned over to place the small piece of ripped notebook paper on her desk.

 _ **Tell me about it,**_ she wrote back.

 _ **I sure could go for some Sea Salt ice cream right now**_ _. . ._ I drew a little smiley face, brushing my chin-length bangs out of my sapphire eyes. My once bushy chestnut brown hair had grown into soft, defined spikes that drooped a bit in some spots, giving me an overall bedheaded, messy kind of look. It could be a nuisance when I was trying to write, especially since it was so long.

 _ **What's that?**_ Her response questioned.

I realized that Kairi probably had never tasted or had any idea what Sea Salt ice cream was and I shook my head. Such a shame. A person hasn't _lived_ until they've tasted the salty-sweet slice of Heaven that was Sea Salt ice cream. I was just about to write a detailed explanation about its awesomeness when I noticed something. I paused, a little bit alarmed.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could clearly see Kairi's left forearm, her pencil in hand tapping a tune away against her desk in a bored sort of way. She was gazing almost dreamily down at her classwork, her eyes scanning what she had written. But it wasn't her pretty face that had captured my attentions. No, it was something vastly different.

Spanning the upper part of Kairi's forearm were three jagged cuts, each different in diameter and depth. They weren't bleeding, and had scabbed over a little bit, but by the look of them, they had most likely bled a lot when they were inflicted. Though I highly doubted she had expected anyone to notice them, the wounds were unbandaged. Kairi wasn't one to go mucking about in places where she could get scratches, and the cat she owned was de-clawed, so how could she have gotten the wounds? I frowned and changed what I was going to write to her about.

 _ **What happened to your arm?**_

I carefully watched her reaction in my peripheral vision, and was surprised to see her freeze and abruptly stop tapping her pencil. She chewed her bottom lip and didn't move to jot down her reply right away. After a long wait with me listening to our many classmates writing away around us, she finally answered.

 _ **Nothing**_ _._

Nothing?! Was she kidding me?! I was eighteen years old, and I was _not_ an idiot. I had been in more battles than she could fathom, and my Keyblade and I had seen some bloody things. I turned my head to give her an incredulous look. I wondered if she might be lying to me for the first time in our friendship and immediately felt uneasy.

If it truly was "nothing," then why in the Hell would she feel the need to lie?

Just then, the teacher stood and continued class, leaving me to spend the rest of the period worrying and doing my best not to jump to conclusions.

Things seemed to return to normal after that, though. Me being the kid I had always been, by the end of class I had forgotten all about our note passing and what I had seen on her arm. My thoughts had turned to the hang out session we were supposed to have with all of our friends that night. Tidus' parents were traveling to one of the other islands overnight for some reason or another, so he had invited the whole gang over for a get-together. I was so stoked that I totally misplaced her wounds in my mind and could only talk to her about the party. I was too into my own world to notice her subdued manner, lack of speech, and general somber disposition—all characteristics most odd for Kairi, the girl who had years ago tried to convince me to _"take the raft and go."_

Fast forward to that night and put everyone in the bedroom of Tidus: Me, Riku, Wakka, Selphie, Kairi, a couple girls from school named Elsa and Moana, and the owner of the bedroom, Tidus. We were having a great time, chilling and eating some snacks that Tidus' mom had bought for us. Everybody was laughing and trying to talk over one another, each feeling as if what they had to say was more important than the person next to them. We ate and ate and ate, until Tidus had to go downstairs and rummage through the cupboards for more food. Wakka and Riku were furiously battling away at a racing video game on Tidus' PS3; Selphie and Elsa were sprawled out on Tidus' bed, painting their toe nails; Moana was cheering the boys on as flirtatiously as she possibly could; and I was sitting at Tidus' desk, fucking around on his laptop, surfing the Internet.

Kairi, on the other hand, was a different story. Nobody had noticed, but she had found herself a corner of the room to sit and basically hide. It was in this corner that she was doing nothing but sitting on the floor, eating. I mean, seriously, the girl had a _feast_ on the floor before her. I figured that was probably why Tidus was currently downstairs gathering up more edibles. Her legs were crossed in front of her and every time I looked at her, she was stuffing her face with as much of the food as she could. She had a huge bowl of Doritos, a plate of three pizza slices, two cans of Pepsi (one unopened), a smaller bowl of candy from Tidus's leftover Halloween candy, a couple of individually wrapped Hostess snack cakes, and an open bag of Chex Mix. While I waited for a game to load on Facebook, I glanced over at her and was shocked to see her grabbing different handfuls of each thing, alternating between chomping away and guzzling down some of the Pepsi. Her hair, which had grown out to the lower part of her upper back, was thrown up into a messy bun. She didn't seem to see me staring at her in muted horror. Nobody else seemed to notice what she was doing, either.

I continued to watch my best friend binge massively for the next ten minutes, absolutely mystified as to how a girl that couldn't have weighed more than 100 pounds had the ability to put away more food in fifteen minutes than I could in a couple of hours without getting full or sick. My hand was frozen over the external mouse that Tidus had plugged into the USB port for when he played World of Warcraft, my eyes glued to her face. Her cheeks were puffed out with the amount of junk she had crammed in there, only emptying when she took a swig of her soda. Her eyes had glazed over like she didn't even know where she was anymore.

When it was all gone, she tipped her head back and downed the rest of the soda. In front of her on the floor, the Chex Mix bag lay crumpled, the empty candy wrappers were situated in a heap, and the crumbs of her victims littered the front of her school uniform. I didn't know whether to be disgusted, concerned, or scared. All I knew for sure was that something was definitely off about her.

Just then, Tidus came rushing in. He was yammering on about a deer having shown up in his backyard, which of course made everyone lose their shit and go insane in their rush to go see it.

We all went clamoring down the stairs to get a good look at the wild animal before it darted back into the woods behind Tidus' house and was lost ~forever~. Us guys were all yelling and freaking out about nature and the girls were squealing at its cuteness. Before we knew it, the deer had gone. Thoroughly satisfied, we all turned to express to each other how "cool" it was. Then, being teenagers, we all somehow came to the conclusion that we should watch a horror movie. Everyone agreed, as that was the logical thing to do at a co-ed high school kickback, so we started to make our way to the living room to go through the family's DVD collection.

It was then that I suddenly realized that one member of our group was missing.

"Hey, guys?" I spoke up. "Where the Hell did Kairi go?"

Riku shrugged before leaving the kitchen. "Fuck if I know? Probably in the bathroom. Let's go help pick a movie, though, or else they'll pick something really shitty."

Not convinced that it wasn't something serious, I decided to forgo the movie choosing and venture back up the stairs to Tidus' room. Kairi had eaten so much food that I was a little bit concerned that she might be sick to her stomach or something.

"Kai?" I called as I came up into the hall. "You up here, fam?"

As I passed the bathroom, I heard the toilet flush and the sink run as if she were washing her hands. I stood in front of the door and turned just as she opened it. She looked up at me in question. I narrowed my eyes at her disposition. Her nose was red and her eyes were bloodshot. The lower half of her face looked like it had been scrubbed with a towel, and parts of her shirt were dark with water that had obviously splashed onto it. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that something wasn't adding up.

"You good?" I demanded, a little more accusatorily than I had meant to sound.

"What are you talking about, Sora?" she said, giving me a weird look that seemed strained. "I was going to the bathroom. Is that a crime now?" She poked me teasingly in the chest and I watched her put a smile on her face. It seemed fake and I was too suspicious, so I fixed her with a stern look.

"Kairi, I'm not stupid. Whatever you were doing in there, it wasn't taking a piss. So fess up." My eyes trailed down to her arm, where I remembered her wounds were, and she hurried to place her hands behind her back.

"Silly, you're talking crazy," she said, her voice honey and sugar. She smiled up at me, all teeth and dazzling brilliance, and I felt somewhat trapped. "I'm being honest—I was just going to the bathroom."

I wanted to point out how odd it was that she had eaten like three pounds of food and then ran to the bathroom the second we all left the room, but her eyes . . . They were just so blue . . . And she was so cute, with her hair pulled up and her bangs falling across her heart-shaped face . . . She definitely wasn't the Kairi I remembered her to be, that was the truth, but she sure was pretty . . .

"Now, come on!" she urged, taking my hand in her warm grip. "Let's go down and join the others."

And so I did what she said, because I trusted her and because she was my best friend. I had convinced myself that nothing was wrong, and that my imagination was overreacting. Kairi was fine—happy, as she had always been.

Oh, how wrong I was. How very, very wrong.

 **x-x**

 **A/N: So there ya have it! What did you guys think of it as a chapter? I know I left up the one-shot version of this, but this fic is going to go a little differently. There will be anywhere from 8-10 chapters, but we will see? Leave a review and tell me what you think!**


	2. Author's Note

**May 18, 2016: Hey guys, don't worry! I haven't forgotten about my stories. I just don't have a computer. Plus, I started my own business making phone cases, so I have been extremely busy because my sales volume has increased to about 20 sales per week, and that's a lot of work T.T but you can see my decoden cases at www . creepycutecases . com**

 **I'm starting school finally in the Summer (at the age of 24 omfg), and then I'll be back to writing! I'll even be updating all of my fics at once!**


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